Family Guy – Da Boom – A Prepper’s Perspective

Family Guy has had episodes relating to just about everything. Back in 1999 they did a doomsday episode relating to the Y2K doomsday scenario called Da Boom. This episode looked at the worst case scenario of what people thought would have happened if the Y2K bug had caused the devastation that some people predicted. Airplanes fell from the sky, trains went out of control, and all the nuclear weapons launched and created a world that nobody was prepared for. Except for Peter Griffin.

When Peter finds out that the end of the world is nigh, he stocks up some freeze dried foods and enough beer to last a year. When he improperly prepares the meals the family suddenly finds themselves without food and are forced to find the legendary Twinkee factory.

Upon finding the Twinkee factory, Peter founds a new city and gathers all his friends to try to reestablish civilization. With Peter as Mayor, he quickly makes himself making decisions that cause the new cities infrastructure to be at risk. The townspeople decide that they cannot afford to keep Peter in their city and banish him and his family only to find that his final decision that got him banished was the second decision that he actually got right.

In my opinion, there are many lessons to be learned here. Storing food for at least a year is a good idea, but it is enormously important to understand how to prepare the food that you have stored. While we are all used to having canned foods, Freeze Dried foods and foods such as MREs are prepared differently. Make sure that you understand the preparation processes before you need to get them right.

Having a backup plan is important as well. Your first plan may fail. If your house is your main plan, it could be overrun, or destroyed. By having a backup plan, you will still have a chance for survival.

When civilization is starting to come back together, make sure that you are valuable. Learn some skills that can contribute to the community. By learning and practicing skills now, you will become a valuable asset in the new world.

Finally, self-defense is vital. Even if you feel that you are safe, and maybe you are, you should be prepared to defend yourself, your family, and your friends. If you are without defenses, you will be vulnerable to any sort of attack. Most threats will be attracted to the easiest targets first.

As far as the episode goes, this show is hilarious. It is one of my favorite Family Guy episodes. If you want to watch it, look for Season 2, Episode 3.